What sex is your brain?

A test promises to reveal the answer based on your vocabulary and visualization of 3D shapes

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March 9, 2010 5:01PM (UTC)

My brain is female -- very female, according to the BBC's Sex I.D. test. I'm empathetic and able to accurately read people's emotions. I'm attuned to changes in my environment, but suck at spatial judgment. I use words, lots of them. Therefore, the complex bundle of neurons and synapses in my skull can be essentialized as female -- a pink brain, a cranial stereotype.

Mind-body social conformity, woo-hoo!

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No, but seriously, the test is based on actual scientific findings regarding differences between the sexes. (So is Match.com's personality test.) They aren't making this stuff up in an attempt to, say, make me feel bad about my inability to visualize complex rotating 3D images. But, it's also true that the premise of finding out the sex of your brain is a bit misleading. The implication is that the test reveals the most innate, defining characteristic of your mind, the thing that makes you you. And as we've argued countless times before, it just isn't that simple or straightforward. But, hey, if you're looking for a Cosmo-style personality quiz injected with a bit of science, look no further.